Of fraud, high tech in Sri Lanka, and air pollution
In July 2000, I wrote an article on Slate about the sales tactics sellers on eBay employed. Titled "Look! Rare and important junk!" the piece began with the strange story of Kenneth Walton:
The most telling fact in the strange case of Kenneth A. Walton—the Sacramento lawyer who sold a painting for $135,805 on eBay after suggesting it could be the work of artist Richard Diebenkorn—was that he lied about having a wife. While this fib may seem small in light of Walton's greater fraud, it was a smart marketing move. The story of how this wife came across the painting at a Berkeley garage sale made its origins all the more believable. Who wouldn't trust a guy who's good enough to be loved by someone? (eBay canceled the sale after discovering that Walton had violated the site's rules and bid on his own item to raise the price. The FBI is now investigating.)
Nearly six years later, I interviewed Mr. Walton for Wired News. He's written a true-crime memoir of his art fraud, " Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay. Here's a fun snippet:
WN: In the case of the fake Diebenkorn, you even went so far as to make up this whole story around it. What was the effect you hoped it would have?
Walton: I realized there were a lot of art buyers out there who were looking for naïve sellers who didn't know the value of what they had. My description of the Diebenkorn painting was just a complete fable to make me look like a hapless everyman rube who found this painting in his garage, didn't know it's by Diebenkorn and puts it up and there's these letters in the corner but he doesn't know to mention and they just happen to appear in the corner of one of the photographs.
WN: You said your kid ran over it with a Big Wheel.
Walton: There was a hole in the painting and I said my kid ran into it with his Big Wheel and you might be able to fix it with duct tape. Of course, I don't have a kid or a Big Wheel.
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The bimonthly newsletter I write for CITRIS is also out.
Low Cost, High Tech
Already CITRIS-sponsored projects like ICT4B and Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) are making a big difference in developing countries like India and Sri Lanka. Read more about the latest news on the progress UC Berkeley faculty and students are making in their efforts to bring ground-breaking and communication technology to the world's poorest citizens.
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Due to pollution, a breath of fresh air isn't what it used to be. Find out how a new center at CITRIS campus UC Davis is increasing our understanding of the causes and effects of bad air on human health.
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Full version.
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